If a facility is sued, Lee said, it is not only protected by state caps on liability, but it also is able to close down the targeted company and continue business under the name of another.

"Our state government has left unprotected our most vulnerable citizens: our grandmothers and grandfathers," said John Morgan, founder of the sprawling personal-injury law firm Morgan and Morgan. "We've let them set up these shell corporations and then set limits on how much you can collect."

Advocates had worked behind the scenes for years to change the federal law, ultimately succeeding with the Nursing Home Transparency Provision in the nation's health-care overhaul. The new law requires nursing homes to provide the information to state ombudsmen — although Florida has challenged the law in federal court, and officials here have said the state does not need to comply with the federal law while the case makes its way through the appellate process.

In Ricks' opinion, the timing of Lee's dismissal — on the heels of his request for ownership information — is "scary." Joe Rodrigues, president of the National Association of State Long-Term Care Ombudsman Programs, said it is "suspicious."

"It's a concern to our association first of all because of the letter from Assisted Living Association to the governor suggesting that the governor replace Brian with this other individual, and, second, because it came immediately after the request Brian made for ownership information," said Rodrigues, who heads California's ombudsman program. "The ombudsman shouldn't fear he'll lose his job if he speaks out or challenges someone, whether it's the licensing agency or the facilities or anyone else."

But Florida's nursing-home industry, represented by the Florida Health Care Association, claims Lee's request was both "onerous" for the one-month deadline he imposed and because it "failed to focus on residents' rights."

Kristen Knapp, the association's director of communications, said the ombudsman program under Lee had often strayed off target and that some volunteers had used their state-mandated yearly assessment of the facilities to become de-facto health inspectors.

"Some folks would even come in and look at the kitchen and question an administrator on the backup food supply in the event of an emergency," Knapp said. "And why is that [ownership] information even necessary? When you have to pull people back to do paperwork, it takes them away from the [residents'] bedside."

Rodrigues countered that anything that concerns an ombudsman should concern the facility, too.

"If I was a facility administrator," he said, "I'd want to hear this from an ombudsman rather than a licensing agency that's going to fine me or an attorney who's going to sue me."

Lee had recently begun to use Twitter to report his findings during nursing-home visits, posting residents' complaints and his observations as he went. An October visit to an Orlando nursing home was especially embarrassing to the facility.

Meanwhile, the Administration on Aging, the most likely agency to investigate, has not yet announced its intentions. But Public Affairs Officer Moya Thompson said the advocates' letters are being reviewed.

Lee and Rodrigues said they had been given verbal assurances that the agency would investigate.

The state ombudsman's office has yet to advertise for Lee's replacement, but acting Director Aubrey Posey — formerly the program's attorney — said the office is continuing to do its job.

The request for nursing-home-ownership information, though, has been rescinded.

Lynn Dos Santos, volunteer chairwoman of the State Long Term Care Ombudsman Council, sees it as the potential beginning of the end. If the ombudsman program loses autonomy in Florida, she said, the nursing-home industry will be emboldened to apply pressure in other states, too.

"I've seen a wonderful leader taken away from us," she said. "He lived and breathed that job, and I can't imagine the program without him. As far as I'm concerned, we need to draw a line in the sand."